Encaustic painting is an early painting medium, used by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. In the later case it was used for the well-known Fayum Mummy Portraits, the sometimes strikingly beautiful portraits done on wooden panels attached to mummies in Roman Egypt.

Encaustic painting is a process in which pigment is added to heated beeswax, sometimes modified with damar resin or other hardening agents, and applied to the support while still hot. Though wax is thought of as a fragile substance, the addition of hardeners and the “Punic wax” process, lost and then rediscovered by painter Fritz Faiss in the early 20th Century, make it durable. The encaustic mummy portraits date from 100-300 AD.

Modern artists in the 20th Century, notably Jasper Johns, incorporated encaustic into their work; and the process, demanding as it can be, is experiencing something of a revival.

Kevin Frank is a Brooklyn based contemporary artist who does still life, landscape and portraits in the encaustic medium. His paintings have a beautiful character of texture and surface color, due in part to the way in which the artist must apply the paint, quickly and with finesse, before the wax cools. (Inexperienced painters will sometimes find themselves with a brush stuck to the surface.)

I find the way that Frank uses the character of the paint particularly appealing in his still life subjects, which have a visceral, tactile quality reminiscent of Chardin. His landscapes appear to lean to photorealism when viewed small; viewing the details, however (look for a link to the left in the pages on his web site) reveals a painterly, textural surface.

Frank’s site includes an essay on his work, and the nature of encaustic painting, by Joanne Mattera, painter and author of The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax.

In two of his still life paintings Frank pays tribute to his chosen medium, Still Life with Flag makes reference to objects associated with the work of Jasper Johns; and The Lyre (image above, third down and detail, bottom) refers to the mummy portraits, one of which Frank had a life size reproduction of mounted on a board and keeps in his studio for study.

Hippolyte (Paul) Delaroche was a French academic painter who helped set the standards for late 19th Century history painting.

Though denigrated in subsequent times (and at the time by upstarts like the Impressionists), history painting was the core of mainstream academic painting, then the artistic establishment; and Delaroche, along with Eugéne Delacroix and Théodore Géricault, was among its chief proponents.

Delaroche was a student of Antoine-Jean Gros, and a teacher of many notable artists, including Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

His highly refined and smoothly rendered history paintings, often large scale tableaux with life-size figures, were dramatic portrayals of scenes from both distant times and recent events.

Very popular in his day, his paintings represented what many find appealing, and others find objectionable, about academic art — superb draftsmanship and flawless technique, but, despite their drama, little investment of emotion or passion on the part of the artist.

Delaroche is known for his monumental work, 88 feet (27 metres) long, around the inside curve of a wall of the hemicycle (circular chamber) of the award theatre of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (image above, top and middle). The painting was a commission from the architect of the school and portrays 75 great artists from various points in time, focused on three thrones on which the creators of the Parthenon sit, flanked by muses, representing their chosen arts of architecture, sculpture and painting.

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (images above, third down and detail, bottom), was unusual and caused great interest when it debuted. It was essentially the start of a new genre of painting, combining the refined painting technique exemplified by Ingres with the drama of history painters like Delacroix. It was an event from English history portrayed, in striking scale and realism, by a French painter. It shows the moments just before the beheading of Lady Jane Grey, who, at the age of 16, was Queen of England for only 9 days before being deposed and later executed by her half-sister Mary.

Other paintings of similar subjects, by Delaroche and other French history painters, would follow. These history paintings, particularly involving subjects like the wresting of crowns from one hand to another, along with such juicy subjects as beheadings (you know — entertainment), would prove very popular with the French audience, who saw many parallels to their own history of clashing monarchs.

This painting, perhaps Delaroche’s most famous, and several notable works on loan, are part of an exhibition at the National Gallery in London, Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey, that is on display until 23 May, 2010.

There is a nice big zoomable version of the painting here as part of the online material for the exhibition (detail above, bottom); be sure to use the “expand” button (rectangle with 4 arrows) to make the zoomable image full screen.